Mozilla Confirms Firefox Support for ARMv6 Android Smartphones

In a recent development, Mozilla has announced support for ARMv6 Android Smartphones with its Firefox web browser. The devices it would now support includes HTC ChaCha, HTC Status, Motorola Fire XT, Samsung galaxy Ace and LG Optimus Q.

Mozilla's Firefox for Android web browser had previously supported handsets that used chips based on the ARMv7 architecture and ran Android 2.2 or later. Now the firm has relaxed its hardware requirements, allowing Android handsets based on ARMv6 chips access to the web browser.

The latest update of Firefox for Android comes with a host of other features inclusive of providing support for a number of advanced features for accessibility. Mozilla stated in its official blog that the move was to make the Open web accessible and free for all. The update was necessary as half of almost 500 million Android users today have their devices based on ARMv6 architecture.

The update renders support for Android phones running on ARMv6 architecture with a minimum RAM of 512 MB and processor speed of 800 MHz. It also offers initial web application support as well as Jellybean support for the feature Explore by Touch. SafeBrowsing feature in this update will help in reducing the profile size as well as in bringing in improvement in IO processing. The change-log also includes hardware and software decoder support provided for h.264 video.

Certain fixes have also been performed to the previous version. Earlier on, holding the backspace button resulted in deleting characters on either sides of the cursor. This has been rectified. Along with this, the instability faced by the browser in Android 4.2 devices has also been addressed.